


Fleeting Moments

by IvoryRaven



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: A Soft Kidnapping, Grief/Mourning, Kidnapping, M/M, Nobody is Dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-19 02:36:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29743704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IvoryRaven/pseuds/IvoryRaven
Summary: Fanfic of Kushi's fic 'A Soft Kidnapping'-Harry's eyes meet hers. She is overtaken by something that looks like grief.Lily's eyes meet his. He looks almost like her son would, if he was still alive.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40





	Fleeting Moments

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Soft Kidnapping](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29373480) by [Kushimani](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kushimani/pseuds/Kushimani). 



Harry sat just inside a shop in Diagon Alley, licking an ice cream. It was rare that Tom let him go out, and rarer that Tom let him go out alone.

He'd begged, and pleaded, and Tom had said _don't you want to spend your birthday with me, darling_ and _Harry had said just for an hour, Tom_ and pushed his lip out like he had as a child while tears welled in his eyes and Tom had looked away, and said yes, and unlocked the door, and sat in his favorite arm chair with his head in his hands.

Harry's stomach twisted guiltily thinking about it - he'd left Tom all alone, Tom who fed Harry, who talked to Harry. The only person Harry had ever really interacted with for the past fifteen years. The only person Harry really knew.

A flash of movement caught his eye. A woman in a black cloak, fiery red hair dancing in the wind behind her, had stepped out of the flower shop across the road clutching a colorful bouquet. She looked straight at him for a moment, and startled, he stared back.

Her face twisted in some powerful emotion - grief, perhaps, and she hung her head and swept off down the alley.

-

It had been fifteen years, fifteen years since Harry had gone missing. She spoke his name, fervently, under her breath, over and over - lest she forget the sound of it in her ears or the feel of it on her tongue. Harry, Harry, Harry. Her son.

He would have been turning seventeen today. His birthday.

They had celebrated his birth only three times, before he had gone missing.

The day he was born, seven pounds, three ounces of love, she and James had looked at him and into each other's eyes and felt on top of the world. Sirius, Remus, Peter, and Severus came over, and had put their differences aside for one day to have cake and meet the baby. 

(They could put aside rivalry then, but not when it mattered most.)

The day Harry turned one, James gave him a toddler broom. Sirius and James had spent weeks teaching little Harry to hold on and zip around the house. Lily had hidden everything breakable after the first vase got smashed. Severus had brewed a child-safe potion - of course, a potion, he was Severus! - that, when blown into bubbles, made rainbow animal shapes float in the air. Harry had loved it. 

On Harry's second birthday, Lily had enchanted a stuffed animal to sing songs and make animal noises. It had him giggling for hours. Remus sent a book, touch-and-feel magical beasts, and Severus had had the same idea, giving Harry a touch-and-feel farm animal book. Harry had liked the chicken page best.

Severus and Remus would never admit it, but they had more in common than they thought.

By Harry's third birthday, the divorce papers had been processed. Lily kept the house. James had a family manor to go to, anyway.

She hadn't changed the little house they lived in, not in all the years she'd lived without her ex-husband and son. Pictures of baby Harry still adorned the mantelpiece. Breakable objects were still stored on the highest shelves, or in boxes, carefully wrapped in years-old pillows.

It was Harry's birthday, and she was bringing him flowers.

He had liked flowers. He'd been reaching for the flowers in the vase he broke on that toddler broom.

(The broom was still standing in the corner, gathering dust.)

Harry would be turning seventeen, if he were - if he were still _here._

Lily was bringing flowers. Snapdragons. Daisies. Spiderflowers. Harry would have liked them.

The bell of the flower seller's door dinged behind her as she stepped out into the alley.

Across the road, a figure was sitting at a table, posture awkward, like they weren't quite sure what they were doing there. Like a traveler from another universe, like the children's book Harry had demanded for his bedtime story for two weeks straight, once.

Their eyes met.

A boy, around the age her son would have been. With green eyes and black hair, almost like he was her son, but all grown up.

Except Harry was dead.

She was madder than she thought, if she was seeing things. Harry was dead, and no amount of wishful thinking would bring him back.

Snap. One of the stems had broken. Her hands were too tight around the flowers. She had broken her son's flowers, broken Harry's flowers, failed him just like she had failed him by letting James take him and lose him and she had failed him by not finding him until he was dead.

Lily pulled the flowers closer to her chest, and went on her way. She would take them to Harry before she ruined anything else.


End file.
